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I think Facebook's core product is inherently evil in a way that other FAANG's core products may not be.

It doesn't have anything to do with this though. It has to do with having so much power and money in a "meritocracy" and the mental gymnastics needed to maintain those two opposing propositions.

Meta's core product is a machine to sell ads, just like YouTube, TikTok, Netflix (now), etc. It's not that unique. And these stories are all over the valley for even much less powerful individuals

I haven't used FB in over a decade, so maybe I am not up-to-date. While YouTube and FB are both machines to sell ads, I'd take YouTube over FB any day. I can pay YouTube a few dollars and avoid ads, YouTube is an insanely useful learning tool as long as I avoid politics/influencer-idiots and comments - is there any useful part of FB? Maybe marketplace, not sure. Is it even possible to avoid ads on FB?

I say this as someone with an extremely negative opinion of Facebook/Meta/Zuck: there are communities that only exist on Facebook, in the form of private groups. If you want to reach those communities, you have no other choice but to meet them where they are. Same problem with Twitter/X...

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